Adhesives are often used to bond substrates together so as to maintain the two substrates in a fixed relation to each other. In the area of industrial adhesives, adhesives (e.g. hot melt adhesives) are commonly used to bond together a wide variety of articles including e.g. cases, cartons, filters and disposable articles. Makers of these articles often switch between various adhesive suppliers based on criteria such as cost and performance or alternately are interested in optimizing the application of a current adhesive.
Prior to moving to a new adhesive or to optimize application of a current adhesive it is common to perform an audit to assist the user in optimizing the adhesive application amount per item (e.g. filter, case or carton).
In the manufacture of cases or cartons, adhesive audits are commonly performed using painter's tape to allow adhesive release for weight determination. Adhesive application amount can be then optimized to a specified weight target or range. Painter's tape is applied to the areas of the unfilled case or carton to which the adhesive is to be applied. The case or carton is then processed through the filling and adhesive application line (e.g. packaging line). At the end of the line, the case or carton is disassembled and the cooled adhesive is pulled from the painters tape and weighed to determine the adhesive application amount per case/carton.
Applying tape is a time consuming process and some adhesives with aggressive bonding characteristics do not pull easily from the tape but rather stick in spots which can reduce the accuracy of the audit.
It would be desirable to have a less time consuming way of performing an adhesive audit. Further, it would be desirable to have a material that even aggressive bonding adhesives could be pulled easily from but yet enables the article bonded to stay intact, or when the article is a case or carton, for the case or carton to stay together through the filling step and the adhesive application line.